The 950 was never a good snow tire but great other wise. All seasons are always a matter of trade offs and believe me, I've had worse in snow. I hope almost totaled means that you avoided all damage. First time out in new conditions can be daunting.
Bridgestone RE960
- Thread starter Finklejag
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I didn't think the 950 was bad in the snow. I still have them after almost 60k miles, excellent tire for the money. I guess the car makes the difference in these cases. I had Michelin Pilots GTH before the Bridgestones RE950 and some #@$%! GoodYear OEM tire before the Pilots.
The RE950 is not even in the same league as RE960. They are not comparable tires. The winter ability is quite good considering the incredible wet and dry traction even at low temperatures.
And your point is . . .? You were comparing the wet stopping distance (in different tests, conducted at different times, by different people) between (1) selected all-season tires, which are formulated for snow traction and therefore generally do not do well in the wet, and (2) "extreme performance tires" which are specifically designed for dry performance and generally do not do well in the wet; and you were using those comparisons to draw conclusions about (3) 3-season tires which were unrepresented in the comparison you were making. And that the Tire Rack has a sprinkler system to wet down the track for testing relates to your invalid comparison, how?
You need look only about three or four messages earlier than yours in this same thread to review what my opinions are regarding hydroplaning.
(1) First and foremost, hydroplaning is an issue of speed. At low speed, no tire hydroplanes; at high speed, all tires will hydroplane if there is standing water on the pavement.
(2) Secondarily, the means to resist hydroplaning is a matter of the void-to-block ratio of the tire, the depth of the channels between blocks, and the depth of the water standing on the pavement. Because the channel depth decreases with wear, any tire that resists hydroplaning at all will do so better in the first half of its treadlife than it will in the second half of its treadlife. That is true whether the tire's projected treadlife is 5,000 miles or 100,000 miles.
(3) Pavement can get wet from condensation even with a clear sky (from the black body effect), from a foggy condition, from a light mist, from a drizzle, or from a light rain, none of which will give rise to conditions where hydroplaning is an issue, but in all of which wet traction is an issue.
(4) During a heavy rain, hydroplaning can be an issue, but only an idiot or misanthrope fails to bring his speed_way down when driving in a heavy rain; anyone who fails to slow down in heavy rain should be denied the driving privilege. However (and this is the part you were misquoting), because all modern paved highways are crowned, after the rain has stopped falling, within seconds, all of the standing water on the pavement has run off to the sides of the road and no longer is in the traffic lanes; then, again, hydroplaning ceases to be an issue. However, the pavement, even with no standing water, remains wet, and wet traction remains an issue after the standing water has run off.
Therefore, the relative importance to driving safety of hydroplaning resistance vs. good wet traction is weighted heavily toward good wet traction, and hydroplaning resistance is mainly important to those without the good common sense to slow down in heavy rainstorms. (Those same idiots, coincidentally, are the ones who never change their tires until the old tires are worn to near-slick.)
As you like quotations from Tire Rack, here is one for you:
The test you provide does indeed illustrate something, but what it illustrates is something very different from what you imply it proves. In an earlier post in this thread, I cited the eleven-tire test of "summer" tires that Car and Driver published in its December 2005 issue. That test was conducted at the Tire Rack test track using the same Tire Rack test car (a BMW) used in most of the test suites you cite. The range of stopping distances on wet pavement from 50-0 for those eleven tires ranged from 86.3 feet to 100.7 feet, and the same BFGoodrich g-Force T/A KD dry-optimized tire that Car and Driver said "On a wet road, . . . you get a spooky feeling that resembles driving on ice," stopped from 50 mph on wet pavement in 97.4 feet.
Now do I (or do you) really think that the BFG Killer Dry ("KD") tire stops 45% shorter (97.4 feet vs. 140.9 feet) on wet pavement than the Dunlop Direzza DZ101? No, I don't, and I am sure that you don't, either. Therefore, all the comparison shows is that the comparisons are valid only within groups of tires tested at the same time by the same test crew, and comparisons from one test to another test conducted by a different testing crew on a different date are impossible.
What part of "inconsistent objectives" do you not comprehend? One more time:
An inherent quality of rubber compounds is to shed water. Build a tire from rubber compounds, and it will have a proclivity to shed water -- which is pretty much a Good Thing for wet braking, because it assists the tread to make more intimate contact with the pavement than it would if there was a layer of water between the tread and the pavement. However, that proclivity to shun water is a Bad Thing for snow traction: the tire does not like the snow, and will not stick to it, so when you press the accelerator, the tire spins. The solution for snow traction is to modify the tread compound so that it is not so hostile to water, so that snow will stick to the tread. Problem is, that modification necessarily compromises wet traction, for the very reasons stated at the beginning of this paragraph. As for what Bridgestone says about tread design, go back and review the relative importance of hydroplaning resistance to wet traction above.
Now, I am not doubting or questioning that in your subjective evaluation of (probably not stressed) wet braking in uncontrolled conditions, it felt to you that the all-season tire "does really well" in wet conditions. I cannot tell you with any certainty whether I could tell in casual driving whether a tire that stops in 94.7 feet is braking any better than one that stops in 140.9 feet. The seat of my pants is a poor measuring instrument, and on a real road, with real objects I could slide into that I want to avoid, I will be modulating my brake pedal in response to visual inputs as well as to the feeling in the seat of my pants. But when I am making a purchasing decision as to tires, if I know that objective tests under controlled conditions have shown one tire will stop significantly shorter in an emergency on wet pavement than another, it is the shorter-stopping tire that I want under my car.
I did bring up their test of "Ultra High Performance Summer Tires". The Tire Rack and tire manufacturers doesn't use "3-season" as a marketing term. Our conversation was getting stuck here because the term "3-season" is almost never used to market tires. They're typically marketed as "summer tires".
Possibly. While it may be "killer dry", I would think the course is wet down similar to the DOT conditions used for the UTQG traction rating, and not even close to hydroplaning conditions.
Unfortunately TR hasn't seen fit to do a test of tires in different categories on the same day. I really wish they did, but in the absence, I provided what they did do with the dates and vehicles tested.
And siping is useful in increasing wet traction. Tread design does have an effect on wet traction, and the sipes used in all-season tires can compensate anywhere from a bit to a lot.
At the very least, there was a test showing that the RE960AS did exceptionally well in wet braking, at least on one particular day.
You saw it fit to call a OEM all-season tire unsafe in the rain earlier. Perhaps your seat of the pants evaluation should also be discounted as not accurate.
Really - you have no proof that the Bridgestone Potenza RE960AS Pole Position is an inferior wet braking/handling tire than many of the tires you would consider "3-season". I'd really like to have test results that meet you satisfaction, but I don't have the resources to do so myself.
I think everyone here understands your position RE: summer/winter/all-season/3-season. It's been met with a healthy "so what" a few times. I really don't care if Bridgestone markets the RE960AS as an all-season, 3-season, or summer tire. I've seen the test results that show it kicks the butt off of other all-season tires in the wet. And most of all, I've actually driven on them. It's an excellent wet weather high-performance tire regardless of how it's marketed.
Twice in this thread, I have pointed out that the tire you were using for comparison, the BFG T/A KD, is not an apt example, because -- unlike most non-all-season tires -- it was specifically designed to maximize dry performance only with a conscious sacrifice of wet performance. (A sister tire, the BFG T/A KDW, is BFG's idea of a compromise to give back some wet performance.)
And both times, you have responded with how Tire Rack conducts its tests, which means that you are completely missing the point or are deliberately obfuscating. "Killer Dry" is BFG's name for the tire; KD stands for Killer Dry. The phrase Killer Dry does not refer to Tire Rack's test methods.
Actually, they have done many such tests. A couple years ago, I compiled a listing of the tests they had done (at that time) in the preceding two years. I did not save the URLs of the tests then, and I have not checked today whether all -- or any -- of the test reports are still on-line. (Tire Rack pulls a test report when any of the, usually, four tire models in the comparison no longer is on the market.)
Here, dredged from the bowels of my hard drive, is a summary of the results of Tire Rack's emergency stops from 50 mph on wet pavement:
o 2003 August 1: three "summer" tires, one "all season." All season finished fourth of four.
o 2004 May 28: three "summer" tires, one "all season." All season finished fourth of four.
o 2004 September 22: three "summer" tires, one "all season." All season finished fourth of four.
o 2004 October 14: three "summer" tires, one "all season." All season finished fourth of four.
o 2004 November 12: three "summer" tires, one "all season." All season finished fourth of four.
o 2005 April 15: three "summer" tires, one "all season." All season finished fourth of four.
o 2005 May 13: four "all season" tires. Interesting result: one specific tire model (Goodyear RS-A) that had finished dead last in one or more of the tests reported above when it was matched against "summer" tires finished -- by a comfortable margin -- first of the four tire models under test when the competition was against fellow "all season" tires.
o 2005 May 27: three "summer" tires, one "all season." All season finished fourth of four.
I refer you to the Car and Driver head-to-head test of Goodyear's best all season tire (which is heavily siped) against a Goodyear three season tire (which has no sipes), published in the December 2006 issue. I discussed this test in the currently active "Northwest" tire thread on this board. The siped tire took a significantly longer distance to stop from 60 mph than the unsiped tire did.
. . . in comparison to other all season tires.
That is true. I also have no proof whatsoever that actress Judi Dench could not whip many of the starting basketball players on National Basketball Association teams in a rebounding contest.
This is all fine and dandy. However - my contention has never been that average all-season tire will outbrake the average 3-season tire. I concede that it's probably true that most 3-season tires will outbrake most comparable all-seasons. My intent was specifically that the RE960AS (not ironically the subject of this thread) has not been placed in a standard comparison test on pavement against 3-season tires. The only vehicle that TR has tested this particular tire on is the 2006 BMW 325i. The only same-day comparison they conducted comparing this tire to a "3-season" tire was for their ice traction test.
Of course I could have referred to their tests on an older, different vehicle where the RE960AS was never among the tested tires, like that makes any sense. I frankly don't care how other all-season tires did. TR's testing got a 2006 BMW 325i shod with 225/45R17 RE960AS tires to stop in 87.6 ft from 50-0 MPH on wet pavement, which was about 8 ft less than the nearest all-season competitor in the same test. It looks like it would have been a decent result even for a 3-season tire although again - it was at a different time. The C&D test of 3-season tires you've referenced was done on The Tire Rack's track with one of these very same BMWs. While it may not be exactly the same conditions, the numbers would seem to place the RE960AS in the middle of the pack compared to the 3-seasons of the same size tested on the same vehicle. A braking test with a car equipped with ABS would seem to be the most repeatable to perform, although I'm sure temperature may affect the numbers to some degree.
The RE960AS may not be the absolute best tire in wet braking/handling. However - for someone who needs to balance cold weather performance, perhaps a few days a year in the snow/ice, and long tread life - I think it's a fine choice for someone concerned with wet weather traction. It's certainly "best of the bunch" for someone with a need for such a tire (like myself). I go to the Sierras in winter maybe a few days a year. This year it dropped below 40 deg F here in the San Francisco Bay Area. It rains moderately here and this morning the road was damp from fog. For someone who drives in those conditions and isn't looking for some boy racer dry-traction tires, the RE960AS is a pretty good choice.
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